


To the moon and back

by Beginte



Category: James Bond (Craig movies)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Bond is trying to get him to safety, Hurt/Comfort, I absolutely promise a happy ending, M/M, Mission Gone Wrong, Q is wounded
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-28
Updated: 2017-02-28
Packaged: 2018-09-27 14:05:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10024037
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beginte/pseuds/Beginte
Summary: In the desert, in the dusk, no one can see them. No one can hear him say all those things he should have said so many times before. No one can see him hold off saying them because he refuses to believe this is the last chance he’ll get.-A mission went wrong, Q is badly wounded, and Bond needs to get him to safety.





	

* * *

When Bond picks Q up, he’s surprised at how much heavier and simultaneously lighter he is than he’d expected. Q tries to bite back a whimper, his ash-pale face contorting with pain, and Bond tries not to imagine that the lightness comes from all the blood that has already left Q’s body.

“Keep pressure on it,” he tells Q gruffly, rearranging the prone, beaten-up form in his arms, tries to move his shoulder to support Q’s head.

The mission was one spectacular failure, with Q kidnapped midway through and leaving Bond half-mad with a whirl of rage and fear in his chest. Two days, two frantic days of abandoning the main mission objective, because the Quartermaster’s safety overrides everything - though even if it didn’t, Bond still would drop and ruin everything, tear the world apart to find him.

And find him he did, but by then the damage was done - tortured for information for two days Q bravely held out, determined and unbreakable. At least in spirit. His body very definitely is broken: a dislocated shoulder that made Q cry when Bond popped it back in, broken ribs that Bond desperately has no way to mend, multiple bruises, a split lip, a gunshot wound...

It’s the gunshot wound that hasn’t let Bond’s heartbeat drop from the adrenaline-fuelled speed of the fight. He killed every single person who’d laid a hand on Q and almost regretted not having the time to honestly relish it. And even the rescue went to shit, which means now Bond is stranded in the middle of a desert, carrying a wounded Q in urgent need of medical assistance. The comms are down and he has nowhere to reach out for help.

Nowhere.

Because he normally would reach out to Q, and right now it’s Q himself who needs that help - he’s loose and pale in Bond’s arms, teetering on the brink of unconsciousness. His bloodied lips are parted in shallow, laboured breaths punctuated by occasional whimpers of pain that make Bond’s heart turn itself inside out; his glasses are gone and he seems so very naked without them, made vulnerable.

Blood seeps slowly from the gunshot wound in his side, and Bond almost wants to vomit when he feels it, sickly warm against his abdomen where it soaks through his jacket and shirt.

He trudges on, towards where he knows the extraction team was supposed to be coming from. The desert is gravel and rocks beneath his feet, the sun has set, painting blood all over the barren landscape, and Q feels light, so very light.

And so very heavy.

It’s the death clinging to him that makes him so heavy. If it wins, it’ll change him into a burden Bond will never, ever be able to carry for the rest of his life. He will lie down and die as well. He realises it with a terrifying clarity.

“Q? Q, talk to me,” he utters through clenched teeth. “Please. Recite the moons of Jupiter in reverse alphabetical order or something.”

A weak, barely-there twitch of a smile, glazed eyes cracking open to peer at him in the falling dusk.

“James...” his name falling in a half-whisper from Q’s lips reaches to Bond’s very core. He’s never heard Q call him that before, and he desperately wishes it won’t be the last time. He wants him to always call him ‘James’. He’s wanted for such a long while now... “James... you care about me...”

The words are a surprise, and Bond holds Q tighter.

“Of course I do, Q,” he says hotly. “Of course I do. Very, very much.”

In the desert, in the dusk, no one can see them. No one can hear him say all those things he should have said so many times before. No one can see him hold off saying them because he refuses to believe this is the last chance he’ll get.

“Mmm... I care about you too,” Q’s voice is almost all whisper now, eyes sliding closed. He rests his head on Bond’s shoulder, like it’s an indulgence, like he’s longed to do it and he allows himself a moment before... something. Bond’s heart freezes when he thinks about it.

But then, Q speaks again, and Bond feels a horrible sense of the inevitable.

“James... do something for me. I know you care about me,” Q swallows, eyes open, looking into Bond’s urgently and so lucid. “And I know you always... end up holding the people you care about... love... when they die,” he swallows again, and Bond feels frozen to the core. “I need you to stop. I need you to put me down, and I need you to walk away.”

Despite the clutching sense of foreboding, the words are still such a cold shock that Bond actually stops dead in his tracks, looking at Q, heart hammering sickly in his chest, in his throat...

“Q-”

“James... please. I know I’m... We won’t get anywhere on time,” Q’s eyes are so sad and so scared. Bond wants to say something, anything, but his throat is closed up and he can’t even breathe. “I don’t want you to remember... this. I want you to put me down and leave me here and walk. Walk away while I’m alive. And think... think that maybe someone found me in time. Maybe I survived and I’m somewhere out there in the world, living. You won’t know, maybe that’ll be the truth. Please.”

“Q!” his voice is hoarse and strapped raw, almost startling them both. He shakes his head, feeling a wave of stinging heat rush to his eyes, up his throat. “Q, _no_. I’m taking you to safety, and I _will_ get you there. I won’t- I won’t _leave_ you... alone,” he finishes, ungraceful, scared when he actually feels his lower lip quiver. “No,” it slips out, pointless and hopeless.

Q blinks at him, wordless. (That’s a first.)

Bond feels sick and desperate. Q’s face blurs and he blinks, terrified of not seeing him for even a second. A streak of heat trickles down his cheek, and it actually takes him a while to realise he’s crying.

“Q... Q, I am _not_ leaving you,” he says, pouring all the truth of this statement into the strength of his voice. It comes out unshakeable, and in that instant he knows he _will_ succeed.

There simply is no alternative. He can’t fathom anything but getting Q to safety, sitting by his hospital bedside for however long he is there, and then quipping and jibing at him when he wakes up, safe and sound and on a straight road to recovery.

“So if you really don’t want to burden me with dying in my arms, you’ll have to get a grip and _not die_ ,” he growls, and Q’s lips actually twitch in a smile.

“Mm...”

“That’s right,” Bond starts walking again, holding Q even closer to himself. “It’s all on you, so you’d better stay alive,” he marches on across gravel and sand, presses his lips to the damp mop of dark hair, pours strength and affection into the gesture. Clings to Q more than Q clings to him. “Stay alive, Q.”

“Okay...” Q whispers, soft but full of promise. It makes Bond’s heart flutter. “Okay. I will.”

“Good. Now recite those moons,” he knows Q loves astronomy. He has a Viva la Pluto sticker on his phone, whatever it means, and the lock screen on his laptop is a picture of some galaxy.

The stars are so incredibly clear over their heads. Desert air, free of pollution and city lights - the stars glitter and shine above their heads. Bond wants to go stargazing with Q, once he’s better. He wants to take him out to dinner, or to an actual, goddamn picnic under the stars, and kiss him there.

By the time Q gets to list Europa, the extraction team’s car roars across a dune, lights sweeping over the terrain.

Bond sits by Q’s hospital bedside for six days, only going home to change, eating in the MI6 canteen and sneaking Q tea by the fourth day, even though he’s not technically supposed to have it yet. He actually asks for leave for the first time in his life and every day he visits Q at home and cooks for him while he continues to recover, doing minor work from home on his computers. Plural.

Their first kiss is exactly unlike anything he’d had planned - it’s Q who kisses him, at 1 am when Bond is cooking in Q’s kitchen, making sure Q has enough food for at least two days. Once Q is finally better, Bond buys a ridiculously warm, thick blanket, an actual picnic basket, and asks Q out for a date under the stars. And because Bond can get unbelievably lucky, the skies are clearer than ever over the Morden Hall Park, and he and Q fall asleep before dawn, waking up long past sunrise with dew on their hair.

Bond sets a picture of Europa as the lock screen on his phone.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this fic done for months and I just never got around to posting it. I'm not sure about some of it, but I like a lot of things in it, so I suppose it evens out :)


End file.
